It is becoming clearer by the day that unless an immediate precaution is taken as the days leading to the primary elections into the various elective seats loom nearer, Enugu is likely to explode into a cataclysm, unprecedented violence, with the victor and vanquished not even finding a hiding place.
That would be a piteous spectacle! A once serene and peaceful state in the last seven years is sliding slowly to anarchy simply to satisfy the whims and caprices, a vaulting ambition of one single man and his woman protégé who recently quit the office of Chief of Staff to run for a senatorial seat of the Enugu East.
The theater of war with the drums assailing palpable quakes have begun sounding several months ago, but surprisingly, the stakeholders of Enugu State, the National Headquarters of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and perhaps the Presidency, seemed not to have summoned enough courage to call the governor of the Enugu State, Barrister Sullivan Chime, to order.
A cursory peep into history will suffice: The state woke up one sunny morning to discover to their chagrin that the governor had left unceremoniously to overseas without as much as being courteous to confide in his then Deputy Governor, Sunday Onyebuchi, or even cause a letter to be transmitted to the Speaker, Eugene Odo, that in his absence, his Number Two man should take over the saddle.
A rudderless ship began, being paddled by the Woman Chief of Staff, and days ran into months, indeed for six months, Enugu State became the butt of ridicule with several calls by its people to be told where their governor had gone to. The rumour mill went full throttle. Some alleged he had kicked the bucket in India, Germany and London. The allegation was that he had died several times.
A concerned group, tired of the rot in the system, called for outright impeachment. Enugu was becoming another Taraba State. Then the cheek of it, an appearance in a Winter pull over of a sickened recuperating governor in London, and eventual return with the most unguarded comment that he had read comments about his long stay and ailment, most times amused, laughing, jeering and perhaps mocking his worried subjects.
Then from the blues, came the curious domestic action against the First Lady of the state. Nigerians were treated to a sitcom of a bloated Clara, son forcefully taken away from her, locked up in what looked like a dungeon and the only time she gets contact with the public, could be likened to a dog in fetters, the janitor opens the barbed gate, flings in the food for the day or when the medics come around. It was horrendously bad. Saved by her friend and a human rights lawyer, who raised alarm, to necessitate her being ferried out of the Government House, it was heartless to treat a human being that way.
In civilized climes, especially America, where this writer lived and studied, Governor Chime would have since been stampeded out of power, forced to resign by Organised Women’s Group, Human Rights Activists and even the Labour in the days of Comrade Adams Oshiomhole.
Before now, he had on several occasions snubbed well planned media awards event in Enugu led by the celebrated columnist, Late Allah Dey, Alhaji Odunewu. Not for him it is to attend ceremonies both in and out of the state and most times had been absent at federal functions that had even the President presiding. It will be a litany to run a check list.
The Deputy Governor, Onyebuchi, buffeted on all sides, who posed no threat to him was bulldozed out of office with connivance of members of the House of Assembly, who today will be sulking in regrets.
Perhaps, three last attempts, viz: His plan to stop Deputy Senate President, Dr. Ike Ekweremadu from returning as senator is where he has met his match. The people of Enugu-West cannot be cajoled. They identify overwhelmingly with Ekweremadu because of his unprecedented development of the zone. There were major federal roads that ran from Ishiagu to Akaeze in Ebonyi, Aninri Road, through Awgu to Udi, the hilly difficult terrain of the plains of the Awgu – Achi, Oji River road that hitherto was inaccessible from Awgu, Dr. Ekweremadu influenced the construction of the roads even up to Udi. So, most gullible people in Udi had thought was the state until recently when the truth hit them, like a thunderbolt.
Small wonder, last week, a mere visit of the Deputy Senate President to Udi, Governor Sullivan’s home country and courtyard, brought the specks out of the Udi homeboy, so to say.
The surging crowd and overt show of unsolicited support and genuine solidarity with key opinion leaders in Udi, urging Ekweremadu to re-run for the senate because of his outstanding performances, which included infrastructure, water supply, electricity, scholarship and empowerment of the people to name but a few, must have rattled Chime to no ends.
The Udi people minced no words. They wondered why any right thinking person would want to change a winning team, especially as Deputy Senate President is the Chairman of ECOWAS Parliamentary body, and the place of the Ibo man in the rank and file of Nigeria polity holding such exalted position as Deputy Senate President.
It is obvious that if both men should slug it out, at the primaries, Chime would be disgraced by the people of Enugu West Senatorial zone.
Of course, the conflagration waiting to explode is the way and manner he has managed who succeeds him in 2015. The charged atmosphere, had led to one of the contestants, Senator Anyaogu Eze, saying publicly that the governor had shortchanged and ambushed him and he was still in the race.
Perhaps the most shocking is the dramatis personae of his erstwhile Chief of Staff, who has equally thrown her hat into the ring to displace Senator Gil Nnaji for the ticket of Enugu East Senatorial zone.
The biased and suicidal plunge of the chairmen of local governments from the zone, alleged to be compelled to use scarce local government funds to foot the bills running into millions, indeed opens another front of economic fraud likely to put them in the web of EFCC sooner than later. If the allegations that they have opened the local government tilts and vaults for reckless spending and siphoning of funds to appease the lady with little or no electoral value and experience, then they are doomed. Have these LG bosses forgotten what happened to Second Republic politicians who transferred and converted government coffers to sponsoring and funding of parties? Have they forgotten that they were thrown into prisons? There is no gain-saying that local government chairmen would no doubt be a meat and easy prey for EFCC if these allegations are incontrovertibly true.
The Nkanu land where she is married, having come from Udi, have vowed not to allow her to accomplish that tall dream, hence other eligible Nkanu sons – Mr. Frank Nweke Junior, former Information Minister during Obasanjo regime, the ALGON National President, Nwabueze, and even the incumbent Senator Gil Nnaji are all in the race for the Enugu East Senatorial seat.
The state government had flexed muscles suspending and autocratically removing traditional rulers linked to the Deputy Senate President and had in recent past tried to stop a ceremony widely publicized where Ekweremadu and deserving Nigerians were to be given traditional titles but could not stop the ceremony which was held amidst pomp and pageantry.
The latest hullabaloo – the unilateral imposition of Ikeje Asogwa, as the new Chairman of the State Executive of the PDP, following conflicting stories surrounding the health of the erstwhile Chairman, Vita Abah, said to be down with stroke and taking treatment overseas, while in another breadth said to have resigned, has further rocked the boat of this seemingly peaceful party in the state.
The immediate reaction of the Deputy Chairman, Elder David Aja, who was legitimately qualified going by the PDP Constitution as the fit and proper person to act for a while or even call for a meeting of the state Executive Council was sidelined has brought to the fore the impunity of the Chief Executive of the state which had reached a bizarre, bewildering and dizzying height.
Given therefore the charged political situation in the state, it is only germane that the National Headquarters of the PDP, headed by amiable Alhaji Adamu Mu’azu, must step in to check this slide to authoritarianism by dissolving forthwith the state party Executive Council, appointing a Caretaker Committee to oversee the affairs of the Party in Enugu. The security arms and presidency must act in good time to checkmate this combustion waiting to detonate.
If the governor’s calculation is to frustrate foundation members of the PDP out of the state in the likely scenario of forcing them to take tickets from other parties, he must have miscalculated, a grievous error, because these PDP Trojans won’t shift base, they will slug it out. So the stakes are very high.
